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Mandy Moore’s journey to fame was one to remember.
During a Sept. 26 Q&A session alongside Storm Reid at the 2025 Inspiration Awards benefiting Step Up in Los Angeles, the This Is Us actress said she’s incredibly grateful to have navigated her early years of fame before the age of social media.
“I feel really, really lucky, because I was still able to be a regular 15-year-old and have this incredible job and opportunities that I never could have fathomed, but I’m still able to be a kid,” Moore, 41, explained. “I could go to the mall, I could go to amusement parks, I could go to the homecoming dance at my old school with my friends.”
“I was still very much allowed to toggle between both worlds, and I never felt overwhelmed,” she continued. “No one told me that I had to pick a lane and define myself in one way. I was able to figure things out as I went along, step by step. And I feel like that, to me, has been the definition of success and longevity.”
Moore rose to fame with her 1999 debut single “Candy.” She continued to release music and then later took on various film and television roles.
Along with finding fame at a young age, Moore — mom to August “Gus” Harrison, 4, Oscar “Ozzie” Bennett, 2, and Louise “Lou” Everett, 1, with husband Taylor Goldsmith — said she has also learned a thing or two about navigating the insecurities and public scrutiny that followed.
“I am definitely my own worst critic,” she admitted. “I try to have the grace for myself that I would have for anybody else that I love in my life. And also just doing something, right? Just taking the tiny incremental steps. You don’t have to have it figured out. In fact, nobody has it all figured out. If they say they do, they’re lying to you.”
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As for how the actress deals with the inevitable feelings of self-doubt that may arise on a tough day?
“I try to remind myself that I’m a mother and I’m a wife and a sister and a daughter and a friend and a partner and all of these things,” Moore emphasized. “I know who I am, and I know what I want, and I know what I don’t want.”
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“It’s going to be easier to answer those questions some days than others, but really it’s just about showing up for myself and recognizing there are many hardships,” she added. “Life is a roller coaster and you’ve just got to keep putting one foot in front of the other and that’s what’s going to win the day.”
